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My friend and fellow astronomer/science fiction writer Valentin Ivanov pointed me at these abstracts saying they reminded him of Star Dragon (which has creatures living in an accretion disk):
| Title: |
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Accretion disk civilization 1: Habitable zone around accretion disks at galactic nuclei. |
| Authors: |
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Fukue, J. |
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Astron. Her., Vol. 88, No. 5, p. 199 - 205 |
| Publication Date: |
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00/1995 |
| Origin: |
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ARI |
| ARI Keywords: |
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Galaxies: Planetary Systems, Planetary Systems: Accretion Disks |
| Bibliographic Code: |
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1995AstHe..88..199F |
Abstract
The space density of stars, and therefore, the possible number of planets are expected to be high in the central region of galaxies. While the galactic nuclei may be rather wild places due to the existence of the supermassive black holes and the surrounding accretion disks. As the first step to investigate the advanced civilizations in the galactic nuclei, the author examines the equilibrium temperature and related problems of possible planets in the vicinity of accretion disks.
| Title: |
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Accretion disk civilization 2: From sunhook to photon floater. |
| Authors: |
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Fukue, J. |
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Astron. Her., Vol. 88, No. 6, p. 244 - 253 |
| Publication Date: |
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00/1995 |
| Origin: |
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ARI |
| ARI Keywords: |
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Accretion Disks: Black Holes, Accretion Disks: Energies |
| Bibliographic Code: |
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1995AstHe..88..244F |
Abstract
An accretion disk surrounding a supermassive black hole at the active galactic nuclei radiates tremendous energy. In order to utilize energy of the accretion disk system, the author investigates the configuration and stability of a floating platform - photon floater - above the accretion disk, which is supported by the radiation pressure of the disk radiation. In the case of the far-floater, which is located far from the disk, there exists a critical floating angle, where the gravitational force of the central black hole is balanced with radiation pressure. In the case of the near-floater, which is located very close to the disk, there exists a critical floating height, where the gravity is balanced with radiation. It is demonstrated that this floating height is dynamical stable. Finally, in the case of the axis-floater, which is located on the axis of the disk, the photon floater is unstable.
Now, these papers are not available online, apparently, and I don’t know the author personally, or the journal, but they sound like a lot of fun and some hard science on which to base an advanced civilization at the (or a) galactic core.
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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This is just going to be a short post tonight on a topic I have discussed before and will likely continue to discuss.
Politics in the United States has become so polarized that few politicians cross party lines. It is one team vs. the other, rather than real issues with real solutions that are not solved by the mindless application of simple positions.
While politics is the most clearly visible example of false dichotomies plaguing us today, we have them in both science and science fiction and they are quite similar: style vs. substance.
Too many people on both sides see it as an either or. Scientists care about getting all the substance right, and getting it all in, with little care for the style of presentation or the reception. Too often they feel like the facts, no matter how boringly presented, should speak for themselves. On the flip side, writers and filmmakers and a lot of other folks don’t worry about getting the details all right, or even mostly right, but only seem to care if the final product is cool and well received by a large number of people.
In short, the science side cares only about substances. The Hollywood crowd and most of the public primarily care about style. Both sides seem to want to pick a side, and align with it. This is somewhat ludicrous.
Why can’t we start with the premise that BOTH ARE IMPORTANT?!
A scientifically accurate presentation is fatally flawed if it is correct but boring.
A gripping, entertaining bit of science or science fiction is flawed if it is fun but inaccurate.
It isn’t either/or.
It can be both. There’s a solution in essentially every case. Flawed movies can be fixed. Boring documentaries can be enlivened.
More on the details of this coming soon as time permits, but the first step is setting aside the limiting beliefs that style and substance are mutually exclusive. That’s small-minded thinking on exhibit.
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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I’ve had a hard time catching up with things this week, post grant proposal, and also having a visiting collaborator/house guest. I have piled up some really interesting links, however, and am passing them on now. I also feel like I’ve made some personal breakthroughs concerning science communication that I will blog about soon.
Really nice list of 15 inventions inspired by science fiction.
35 Amazing Science Fair Projects. I think most of them are even real. Scary more than amazing.
Sometimes cosmology in the news doesn’t sound so cool. Sometimes it stinks. Mysterious “dark flow” extends to edge of the Universe.
Sagan-Man! I love xkcd.
Bad sex in fiction. It’s enough that bad sex exists in real life, isn’t it?
It turns out that the Secret Diary of a Call Girl was based on the real life story of a scientist putting herself through school. A little sordid, but I approve. Scientists can be hot, too. Hot like Billie Piper.
Racist math. Yeah, I think it qualifies. I’m all for being innovative and interesting to motivate students, but still…
John Scalzi on the issue of bad science in Star Trek and science eduction more generally. Highly recommended reading, whether you agree with him or not. And JJ Abrams about Star Trek 2.
High-tech tattoos. Cool! Mood skin coming…
A story about a Stephen King appearance and his new book.
Meteor video from Utah.
Here are two io9 links about superhero comic stuff. About unfilmable stories and bad retcons.
Pictures of the surface of the sun. Cool. No, wait…hot!
A library bitch censoring Alan Moore graphic novel. Librarians are great, doing an important job, but like cops, the bad ones need to destroyed.
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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I’ve been busy the last week or so revising a grant proposal for the National Science Foundation. I finally finished yesterday, and am relaxing a little. It’s fine to work hard, and it’s fine to take a breather in between. I have a lot to catch up, and if you’ve been waiting for a reply from me about something, I should get to it soon now. Feel free to bug me again if necessary.
But I need to remind myself that running around with giant “to do” lists, losing sleep over deadlines, watching shows on the DVR only because it is filling up (Damn you Prisoner!) and not because you want to and have the time, always feeling overwhelmed, and letting life control you, rather than controling your own life…this is ok once in a while but not as a way of life.
We’re here. We should be having fun. If you’re not having fun, well, go have some!
I am thinking about this today because one of my favorite teachers from high school passed away, and I just learned about it. James Alverson was my history teacher, and pretty cool. He was a scary looking bald guy with a beard and glasses, an American version of Vladimir Lenin, but with only one leg and a limp. He was often serious and appeared disconnected as he limped up a stairwell, but the truth was that he was fully engaged with the world in a deep way and cared very, very deeply about things. I remember one year he filled his room with pieces of artwork showing voluptuous women — fat, the girls then and now surely thought. And that was why. Anorexia and bad nutrion was becoming an issue and he wanted students to realize that the present ideal of beauty was a cultural artificact, and didn’t have to be the truth. He put up the paintings and sculptures, and never told anyone why until someone asked.
My favorite episode with Mr. Alverson was one day when he came late to class. He hobbled in and strangely sat on the edge of the front desk and just started making small talk. This went on for 5-10 minutes. He had a glass with dark liquid inside that he sipped from. He joked around, teased some of the students. One asked what he was drinking, as he did come off a little drunk. “You want to try?” he asked Bob, who quickly declined. Coffee was all it was, but he wanted to have a bit of fun. One of his friends had told him that he was becoming a sourpuss, being serious all the time, and needed to lighten up and enjoy things. He did, in a way I will never forget.
I lectured this morning myself, and I realize that he taught me so much that day. I go into class and I plan to teach, but I also expect to have fun. Instead of showing a slide of a map of the cosmic microwave background, I drew it. Three times. First with the dipole motion, the redshift/blueshift pattern caused by our motion. That looks like a cosmic yin-yang symbol, and I’m sure some Eastern mystics have made some bogus claims based on this coincidence. Then I drew what was left when you corrected for the motion — a lot of galaxy contamination. Finally, after subtracting off the Milky Way emission, I drew the temperature fluctations and discussed their power spectrum. I joked about my abstract art and how these scribbles were appropriate for a graduate-level astrophysics course.
I also offered to share my drink. I had a whole case of Diet Mt. Dew with me, but no takers. A couple should have, as I saw them nod off early, but I had them awake and egaged by the end of class.
I like teaching. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m a little strange. I have fun, and that’s the best way to do it.
So please, go throw in a little fun into whatever you’re doing today, tomorrow, whenever. This is your life, and why not make sure to have some fun?
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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Fox News has posted and article about the Vatican holding an astrobiology conference in order to help determine what the existence of alien life might mean for the Catholic church.
Might as well just have a conference on what reality means to the church. Alien life is likely, and either exists or doesn’t, and either exists in a form we can discover in the near future, or not. In either event, religion must accommodate reality if it is a serious, reality-based activity. The Catholics’ readiness to accept ridiculous evidence for miracles, exorcism, papal infallibility, spread lies about AIDS and condoms, already shows their institutional disdain for reality, so the whole exercise is a joke.
I feel sorry for the Jesuits and astronomers among the Catholics. They have to live in the gap between reason and irrationality on a daily basis, and they must enjoy a form of communal insanity.
It’s something akin to the “god of the gaps” again, with the false spin that there is a gap between religion and science that needs to be filled. Here’s the relevance to the Pope:
Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI , who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
First clue: faith and reason are different. Completely. There is no relationship between them. The Pope is pursuing a fool’s errand. But I can’t just pick on the easy and ridiculous target that is the Pope. I have to acknowledge some of my fellow astronomers are astonishingly stupid:
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
“Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe,” he told a news conference Tuesday. “There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe.”
What dialogue? It’s a monologue!!! Science doesn’t need or care for anything religion has to say on this topic, and religion has to accept what science tells it on this topic. That’s how science and reality work. And science doesn’t “posit” any such thing, Chris. You’re making up shit. Did the Vatican pay for your trip to the conference? Vying for the Templeton Prize? This “rich middle ground” is a false gap, and it pains me to see a scientist spouting this apologist nonsense.
The Vatican does have an observatory and competent astronomers. That’s about the only positive thing I have to say here on this particular topic. If the Catholics and the other religions had any faith in their faith, they’d have a revelation from God and tell us if aliens exist. That might let us eliminate the hypotheses of some religions at least. They won’t. They have too much money and power to actually risk.
If the Catholic Church wants to do and fund science, great. All the rest of this apologist stuff is nonsense to any rational person.
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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These were supposed to be for Sunday, but we had a database error last night. Sorry if you tried to visit then. But there are some awesome links in here, I think.
New Stephen King short story online at the New Yorker.
Really cool moon maps.
Even cooler Martian landscapes. Amazing.
Lynn Hansen, horror writer, has a really great page on her website with resources for writers. A lot of overlap between what she recommends and what I would, except she’s got hers up online already in one place and mine are scattered across a bunch of blog posts.
Comic books are good for kids’ reading. I think I’m living proof, too.
Atheism isn’t a movement.
James Wallace Harris riffs on Carl Sagan. Nostalgic? Go check out episode 1 of Comos.
New type of supernova discovered. Or finally understood a little better, anyway.
Rockband 3 is actually promising to teach people how to learn to play instruments for real. I’ll believe it when I can play a real guitar…
Top ten fake deaths in science fiction. Lots of comic books examples here, actually, but a cool list I like.
More clear evidence that Kirk Cameron is a misinformed and misguided moron, which includes a response video from YouTube user “ZOMGitsCriss” — I think I’ve found my soulmate:
God, she’s awesome. “Snake!”
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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We’ll keep with the “S” theme as this post today is related to yesterday’s.
Apparently a group is trying to start up a “Carl Sagan Day” on Saturday, November 7th, which would have been his 75th anniversary. Sagan was a good scientist and top-rate popularizer of science, through books and TV. In light of yesterday’s post, I was thinking about why he was so effective, and it must be his heart. The guy reeked of sincerity, consistently pushing a consistent agenda of science, reason, and reality. He reached people in large numbers, and didn’t need to resort to intuition, humor, or sex appeal to get them to listen.
Even though he reached larger audiences with a science message, he was still a specialized taste and never quite a superstar to the public at large, in my opinion.
I am amazed at some of the comparisons made with Sagan today. Sagan was an atheist and not at all superstitious, and was not circumspect about this. Yet somehow Richard Dawkins today is “militant” and “strident” in a way good old Carl wasn’t. Except Sagan said things like this:
“A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.”
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
“The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.”
“In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
I think Sagan’s heartfelt sincerity kept his clear and harsh criticisms of religion, despite writing an entire book on the topic, more socially acceptable than Dawkins who, generally speaking, only appeals at the intellectual level. Science is so counter-intuitive sometimes, and intrinsically beyond humor and sex appeal for the unitiated (see The Big Bang Theory for the best attempt to date), that maybe heartfelt sincerity is the best and most consistent way of penetrating larger audiences. I’ve heard people look at some of the current would-be replacements for Sagan (Dawkins, Neil de Grasse Tyson, etc.) and find them lacking in comparison.
Is Sagan the model? Sincerity? It seems to dampen the arrogance that much of the public associates with scientists, which ridiculously makes them throw out science just because they dislike arrogance. For instance: Yes, Scientists do much Good, but a World Run by these Arrogant Gods would be Hell on Earth. WTF? It really irritates some people that science often comes up with ideas that challenge their intuition and don’t want to sugarcoat the news or accept that a knee-jerk reaction should be given equal time in comparison to a serious scientific study.
So, is Sagan the best model? Can you get away with speaking the truth more easily if you’re friendly, serious, and obviously consistently sincere about it? Or do people need to be shaken up? And is it fair to call a guy who merely writes words and speaks the truth like he sees it, without using violent langage, be called “militant” or “strident?” Does it matter if people are turned off the message by the messenger? Or is it the message?
Or do we need to delve more deeply into humor like Brian Malow, the science comedian? Or develop more sexy spokespeople for science and reason like Kari Byron of Mythbusters?
I’m wondering about the best methods myself. Maybe I should start asking for jokes and bikini shots with Launch Pad applications. Hmmm…maybe I can pull that off if I am very, very sincere.
Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there. Tags: uncategorized
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